When Ideas Strike

Did you ever have one of those weeks where you had ideas coming in left and right and you have to write (or paint or sculpt) what's in your head or your brain will explode? Okay, maybe it's just me, but this week was one of those weeks. Carrying on the theme from the last blog post, it was nothing that I planned to work on, either. This time, I decided to ride the wild horse and see where it would take me instead of trying to direct the thing myself. It made for an enjoyable week.

Short Fiction

I temporarily put "The Bing Wong Motel" to the side. Instead, my muse told me to write a story called "Wandering." I was just "musing" (see how that works?) about how I never see anybody hitchhiking around these parts and voila, the germ of a story popped into my head. I start the story off with a quote from William Blake and the sentence "Nobody hitchhikes anymore." The rest of the plot filled in as I wrote. I had the entire 6,500 words written over a three day period.

Once I printed off the first draft of that one, I intended to go back to one of the stories in progress. Instead, I got my hair cut yesterday (I go to a "real" barber instead of a salon). There was this little boy there about to get his first haircut and I had front row seats at the event. As I watched, another story idea popped into my head and I couldn't wait to get home to get it onto my computer. As of this writing, I'm probably another page or two from the end, called "The Deepest Cut."

The goal here is to write more short stories (and poetry) than I'll need for the book so I'll have something to choose from when it's time to pull the book together. I'm going to have twelve stories and six poems in the final manuscript. Right now, I have twelve stories either completed or started, so I should have fourteen or fifteen ready by later this year.

Other

Still waiting to hear from my attorney (I'll call him "Bombastic Bob," a nod to Johnny Carson's own real life attorney, Henry I. "Bombastic" Bushkin). The reason Bob is "bombastic" is because of what he charges me per hour. Oy! Aside from that, Bob is a great guy and I'm hoping he'll be even greater and hook me up with a producer or two. We'll see.

By the way, I've been reading the rest of the books in the James N. Frey "series" of "damn good novel" instruction books. Jim has a lot of good practical advice for novelists and as I've found, no matter what I've learned from my own experiences or other writers, it's always worthwhile to read books and magazines which are geared to helping writers out. I always get something useful out of it. Right now, I'm working out the idea of "premise" (v. theme or moral) and making sure I have a solid one before writing my stories. Very helpful stuff, I'd say.

That's all for today, friends. I hope you're having a creative week and I look forward to hearing from you or at least, reading your own masterpieces.

Until next time, write on!

Michael

Attention Span Issues

I have to admit that when it comes to other facets of my life, I can be very focused. In fact, in a world of significant distractions, I can't think of anyone more single-minded than me. I'm not bragging … in fact, I would call it a curse more than anything else. Writing, however, is a different story. Here is an example of such a week.

Short Fiction

I did nothing this week with "Bones Under the Bed," my current short story in progress. Instead, I started a new one (one that was sort of in the queue) called "The Bing Wong Motel." Simply put, it's an offbeat story of discovery. I've only written a few pages of that one so far.

Screenplays

Doc On Loan remains in the "to be edited" mode, which was intentional because I wanted to look at it with fresh eyes for the second draft. Meanwhile, I didn't make any progress on Original Idea nor did I look at Thirty Years in any significant fashion. Instead, I started outlining the scenes for a new screenplay I had in the queue (Untitled here, for now).

Why this one? It was one of those shower epiphanies I have. I've always seemed to have gotten my most creative ideas while in the shower. I don't know what possessed me to think about this particular screenplay idea I had, but the scenes started dropping into my brain so fast, I couldn't wait to get out to write them down. I'm not done yet with the scene outlining, but I was able to capture all I thought of for now. Untitled is yet another comedy featuring a popular comic actor (in my head, of course). I'm looking forward to writing it.

Non-Fiction

Nothing on the American Chronicle front again this week. I seemed to have lost my momentum there (for now).

Other

I decided to email my entertainment attorney (the guy I hired last year to review the option contract for The Rebound Guy (which became Ricochet Man) to find out if he had any contacts - producers, literary agents, etc. - that he could hook me up with to look at my two completed screenplays and the reality show treatment my wife and I wrote. Sure enough, he wrote me back and invited me to send him what I had; he will read them and decide whether he will pass any/all of them on to the producers he knows. He claims he's done this for other clients and some have walked away with projects options. I can only hope :-)

Also, I decided to use Vistaprint.com to turn the cover of my book into postcards, all for just the delivery charge (less than $6.00 … they were having a sale). I got them the other day and they turned out MUCH better than I could've hoped for. I will be using these to help me market the book before I publish In The Foothills next February.

Okay, that's all from hot So Cal to your home. Have a great 4th!

Michael C. Cordell